Effects of Coal Mining Height and Width on Overburden Subsidence in Longwall Pier-Column Backfilling

• Main Authors: Xiaozhen Wang, Jianlin Xie, Jialin Xu, Weibing Zhu, Limin Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: mining height; mining width; longwall mining; pier-column backfilling; overburden subsidence
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/7/3105

Longwall pier-column backfilling is a partial backfilling technique initially designed in thin coal seam mines. With the increase of mining intensity, the mining height and width of the backfilling working face will also increase. It is necessary to analyze how changes in working face dimensions influence the control effect of overburden subsidence in pier-column backfilling. In this study, a mining model with a combination of 25 conditions (five different mining heights (1~3 m) × five different mining widths (80~240 m)) was designed using a FLAC3D(Vision 5.0) numerical simulation. The simulation was used to analyze the control effect of overburden subsidence with varying mining heights and widths. In addition, according to the field working face conditions, two physical similarity models were performed to explore the overburden subsidence law in pier-column backfilling with different mining heights and widths. It was observed from the above study that mining heights and widths will have a different influence on the overburden subsidence in longwall pier-column backfilling. The result of this study provides strong theoretical support for evaluating the control effect of overburden subsidence in longwall pier-column backfilling.